Borowitz Report For Today

[CheechB03]

BUSH NAMES SYRIA, IRAN TO 'AXIS OF ASSHOLES'
President's Obscenity-Laden Keynote Address Rocks G-8 Summit

Whether it's Bush, Clinton or any president I can appreciate a president showing his human side. I think it's great he called them 'Axis of Assholes'. Why mince words? Call a spade a spade.

[CheechB03]

Elsewhere, al-Qaeda disavowed responsibility for a terror plot to make Americans' laptops burst into flames, blaming it instead on Dell.

LMAO

That was great!

[savage1]

Hillary Offers to Housesit for Bush
Would Water Plants, Read Presidential Briefings in Oval Office

Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) said today that she was "just trying to be helpful" when she offered to housesit for President Bush at the White House for the remainder of August.

Sen. Clinton, who was immediately criticized by congressional Republicans for advancing the proposal, said that her only intention was to "hold down the fort" while Mr. Bush took his traditional August vacation at his ranch in Crawford, Texas.

"I would water plants and take in the mail," Sen. Clinton told reporters. "And if any Presidential Daily Briefings come across the desk with titles like 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the U.S.,' I would read those for him."

Leading Republicans on Capitol Hill blasted Ms. Clinton's offer, with Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn) claiming that the house-sitting proposal "reeked of opportunism."

"She just wants to know what it's like to be in the Oval Office," Sen. Frist said. "After all, when her husband was in there, he always kept the door locked."

At the President's ranch in Crawford, White House spokesman Tony Snow said that Mr. Bush had politely declined Sen. Clinton's proposal, "although the offer to read stuff for him was pretty attractive."

Mr. Snow said that if Sen. Clinton really wanted to be helpful, she could come out to Crawford and do the chores that Mr. Bush finds too onerous.

"There are plenty of things the President doesn't like to do at the ranch," Mr. Snow said. "Like talk to Cindy Sheehan."

Elsewhere, former FEMA chief Michael Brown said he would mark the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina by returning his calls from a year ago.

[savage1]

I kind of like this one;

Bush Says He Will Back Up Tough Talk on North Korea With Even Tougher Talk
Drop Nuke Plans or Face 'Meanest Speech Ever,' President Warns Kim

In a nationally televised speech from the White House today, President George W. Bush warned North Korean President Kim Jong-Il that he is prepared to back up his tough talk on North Korea's nuclear program with "even tougher talk."

After the mercurial Kim tested his nation's first nuclear device two weeks ago, many in diplomatic circles wondered if Mr. Bush would retaliate with more than strong words, but today's speech left little doubt on that score as the U.S. president said that he was "prepared to strike back with the strongest words ever."

"To Mr. Kim Jong-Il, let me say this," Mr. Bush said. "Abandon your nuclear program at once, or you will face the full fury of the United States of America's harshest rhetoric."

At the Pentagon, officials today said the President was mulling a series of options to punish North Korea, including a tactical speech lasting ten to fifteen minutes or a more devastating verbal assault that could last up to an hour.

Later in the day, White House spokesman Tony Snow said that President Bush had conducted a test of his "meanest speech ever" in front of the White House staff and that the speech had been "totally successful."

"In his speech, the President called Kim Jong-Il 'evil,' 'wicked,' 'immoral' and 'iniquitous,'" Mr. Snow said. "The message is clear: the United States has a thesaurus and we're not afraid to use it."

[savage1]

Bush Refuses to Set Timetable for Reading Study Group Report
Finishing Report Would Send 'Wrong Message' to Enemies, President Says

In a press conference at the White House today, President George W. Bush flatly refused to set a timetable for reading the Iraq Study Group's report, telling reporters that doing so "would send the wrong message to our enemies."

When the Study Group issued its report last week, many in Washington assumed that the president would move the book to the top of his reading list, but today's press conference left little doubt that Mr. Bush has no intention of being pressured into finishing the 160-page volume.

"If I were to announce that I planned to finish reading this book by summer of '07, or early '08, or some other artificial deadline, that would be giving our enemies exactly what they want," Mr. Bush told reporters. "And so I am going to stay the course and finish the book I am currently reading: 'Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog.'"

According to Professor Davis Logsdon, who teaches a course in the president's reading habits at the University of Minnesota, anyone who expects Mr. Bush to finish reading the Iraq Study Group's report any time soon will be "sorely disappointed."

"When President Bush says he's going to take his time reading something, he means it," Dr. Logsdon said. "Remember how long it took him to finish 'My Pet Goat.'"

Elsewhere, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) said he had decided to run for president again in 2008 after being urged to do so by both David Letterman and Jay Leno.

[savage1]

Bush's State of the Union Address to be Simulcast in English
President Hopes to Reach Broader Audience, Aides Say

For the first time since he was elected president of the United States, George W. Bush's State of the Union address tonight will be simulcast in English, the White House confirmed.

With the public unenthusiastic about the president's plan to send a "surge" of troops to Baghdad, the decision to simulcast the speech in English was widely seen as an attempt by Mr. Bush to make an appeal to a broader audience.

"The majority of people in this country are English speaking, and quite frankly, we can't afford to ignore them any longer," White House spokesperson Tony Snow said. "Hopefully, by doing the English simulcast, we'll be reaching out to a lot of those folks."

Once the decision was made earlier in the month to launch the historic first English simulcast of a speech by President Bush, then began the hard work of translating the text of the address from Mr. Bush's language into English.

Davis Logsdon, a professor of linguistics at the University of Minnesota, was one of several scholars approached to do the translation who ultimately quit in frustration.

"The problem is that the language the president speaks, by most measures, is not a language at all," Professor Logsdon said.

In his speech, President Bush is expected to downplay setbacks in Iraq and will instead highlight the accomplishments of his six years in office, including his historic decision to cancel the agreement between nouns and verbs.

Elsewhere, marathon runners and long-distance cyclists could be putting their lives at risk, according to a new study funded by the Society of American Sofa Manufacturers.